Exposure on Mox 17
by travellerslover
Summary: A malfunction in the TARDIS leaves Clara and the Doctor stranded on a living planet where things are much worse than they seem, and they already seem pretty dreadful.


**AN YO YO YO This is dedicated to a lovely reviewer, FANtom of the Opera, who touched my heart. This idea just came to me after being prompted by someone to write for apart of a series. This will only be one adventure and it's won't be very long, but I'm excited to see how it unfolds regardless. **

**Please please R&R xoxo**

**I.**

Clara was absolutely furious. Unequivocally livid. Completely and utterly exasperated beyond what she thought capable for a human body to handle.

"Let's go to the planet Azeron, he says. It's a lovely place full of underwater cities and glowing beaches and mermaids. You're a woman. Surely you like that silly stuff." Clara yelled in frustration, quoting the Doctor's persuasive, albeit a tad sexist, speech as to why they should visit the planet. As a matter of fact, she did like mermaids and glowing beaches and cities under the sea. It all sounded lovely and had absolutely nothing to do with her sex.

That wasn't the point. Clara had a sneaking suspicion that she was nowhere near Azeron. She'd seen the damn thing from space. It was blue and shined like a sunrise. This place was dark, damp, and disgusting.

She began laughing, her body breaking down into a fit of anxious giggles that sounded a hell of lot more like choking sobs. She was waist-deep in fowl smelling, glittering sludge. The mud had claimed her new shoes during the first few steps after her horribly ungraceful fall. Now she could feel the slimy floor with her toes, it shifted and shivered beneath her feet, giving Clara the impression that whatever it was she was walking across was sentient.

She'd just wanted a vacation. Was that really too much to ask? Her students were trudging unsuccessfully through their mid-term evaluations, her love life was confusing and seemingly nonexistent, and now she was alone in the middle of a living forest, drowning in the universe's smelliest, shiniest mud.

And where in the bloody hell was the Doctor? She had been literally thrown out of the TARDIS, catapulted like a rag doll into this hell. Clara rarely even felt the effects of flying, so for the equilibrium to be so off that she could be thrown from the ship was saying a lot.

There were trees, or something similar to them, crouching over her in every direction, so their was a chance that this planet had a similar atmosphere to Earth, but it was impossible to know for sure judging by the colors of the plants around her. They weren't green, far from it. They were dark, jewel shades of maroon, purple, and teal. Even the mud was different. It looked like dirty, liquid gold, and sparkled like it as well, though it still gave off the most pungent odor.

The coloration made Clara think that the TARDIS must be nearby, providing her with a blanket of breathable air. That gave Clara a little comfort. She really _really_ didn't want to die on some faraway, nightmarish Dr Seuss marshland today.

Clara braved a glance at her dress. She'd been getting ready for a date when the Doctor popped in, and it broke her heart to know that the new article of clothing would be reduced to smelly rags. Her eyes widened, growing so large that for a moment they might have popped right out of her skull. There was something eating her dress. The sparkles weren't sparkles at all. They were alive and they were crawling all over her body and consuming the clothes off her back.

Tiny pieces of glitter were _literally_ eating her outfit. She screamed. It was an awful sound that tore painfully up her throat and burst forth from her mouth like a badly tuned marching band. It was jarring and terrified and hurt her own ears to hear.

Yanking her hands from the mud, she vainly tried to brush away the parasites, but upon feeling the smoothness of her skin, she realized in horror that they were also eating her hair. The screams became more frantic as images of her without hair or eyelashes flashed across her mind. She clambered onto the nearest tree branch and began shaking violently, cursing her vanity.

Then, like a gift from god, a rush of scalding hot water rained down on her body, and the prickly feeling of being covered in a million little bugs disappeared, a wheeze of steam rising from her skin in their wake. She glanced up and saw the Doctor holding out his hand to her, anxiety deepening the lines of his face. She grabbed it gratefully, joyous tears gathering in the corners of her eyes as he hoisted her into the precariously floating blue box. The TARDIS almost seemed wary to let Clara in, like she was scared of this planet. Odd.

He flung her inside and slammed the door shut behind her, immediately returning to the dash, worrying his eyebrows into a frown. "Something is wrong with the TARDIS. She isn't holding herself together and the parts she needs are broken."

Clara had a billion questions, but the cold interior of the TARDIS left her exposed skin covered in goosebumps. "Oh my god, I'm naked!" she gasped, trying to cover herself, too stunned and confused to move an inch.

"Oh keep your clothes on," scolded the Doctor with a wolfish grin. "It's nothing we haven't seen before."

He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it to her, though the cut left very little to the imagination, it would suffice because she needed to find out what in the hell was going on before thinking about clothes.

A lurch sent Clara flying forward and she crashed into the Doctor, who simply grasped her shoulders and pressed her against his willowy frame, only needing one hand to manually steer.

"I thought she could rebuild herself. Make new parts," Clara choked out, her breathing cut off from his vice-like grip. It was the closest thing to a hug she was going to get, so she begrudgingly allowed it.

"Normally she can, yes, but there's a malfunction. We have to land as soon as possible so I can take a better look, but this planet isn't safe. We need to find a city."

"What planet is this exactly? And why isn't it safe?"

"Technically it's a moon. We're on Mox 17, the only moon of Azeron. It's not safe because there are tiny organisms living on the planet's surface that feast on various extra-terrestrial, organic materials, which I'm sure you've noticed. Fur, wood, cotton, being a few examples from Earth alone. They're not unlike maggots and you landed in a nest of them."

Bile rose up her throat, but her purging was disrupted by another violent lurched. Instead of falling backwards, Clara remained in place by the Doctor's hold. She looked at him through dizzy eyes, her vision swimming back and forth. "Wood? But I saw trees back there.."

The Doctor gave her a grave look. "Those were not trees, Clara."

She shuddered, too terrified to ask, and instead chose to press her wet hair into the Doctor's chest and wait for a plan.

* * *

"We should be in the middle of Europa, a human colony built high above the surface of Mox 17. If I'm correct, that is. And I always am."

"Except for that o-"

The Doctor hushed her immediately with a long, slender finger across her smirking lips and gave her a look that was made all the more evil by his cartoonishly angry eyebrows.

"Now now, Clara. Nobody likes a fibber." He removed his finger and straightened his newly dried jacket.

"Are you sure nothing out there is going to eat my clothes or my hair, Doctor?" Clara asked warily.

"Not entirely positive, but I suspect that these humans learned their lesson, which is why they are so far from the planet's surface."

"Why would they live on this miserable dump if Azeron is so close?"

"According to this." The Doctor pointed to the monitor as though that were enough explanation. "They are the Separatists that broke away from the Kingdom of Azeron. They scattered to the moons and colonized there."

"Moons? As in plural? I thought you said there was only one."

"Honestly, Clara, don't be daft. Would you name a moon 17 if there were only one?"

She bit back her anger and sighed slowly. "So then what happened to the other moons?"

"Now that," the Doctor grinned, "is the right question. It doesn't say, so I suppose we'll have to figure it out ourselves. Ready?"

"Doctor," she bit out. "Were we ever going to Azeron?"

He rolled his eyes with a scoff and fixed her in place with an icy glare. "I didn't purposefully break the TARDIS and throw you into a pit of starving, sparkling maggots if that's what you're insinuating, Clara."

His tone left absolutely no room for argument, but Clara didn't believe him. She stuck her nose in the air and stalked past him. "I'm sure my being naked was just a happy coincidence, then," she tossed over shoulder before throwing open the door and stomping outside. Her frightened scream soon followed.


End file.
